Free Angels in the Architecture by Sue Fitzmaurice Page B

who was bishop at the time.’
    ‘How’d you know all this?’
    ‘The deaconess! ’
    ‘Right. Name of ... ?’
    ‘Ah. R ... r ... Rose!’
    ‘ R-r-rose!’
    ‘I was just trying to remember it. I knew it was R-something. You’re being very cheeky tonight, y’know.’
    ‘Sorry. Feel like taking the piss. The alternative may be that I yell at someone.’
    ‘Really? Why’s that, love? Those quantums getting you down again?’
    ‘Oh, I’m just not sure about what I’m doing, and where I’m doing it. Bit bored , I suppose. Would rather be in the thick of it somewhere and instead I’m sat here in Lincoln with a bunch of dreary odd-bods who’re not at all interested in anything new – anyway, whatever. Don’t get me started.’
    ‘I know the perfect recipe for boredom.’ Pete put his book down and rolled towards his wife.
    ‘Nuh. Don’t even think about it.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’
    ‘No. Not interested. Sorry.’
    ‘Oh my , things are bad.’
    ‘Don’t joke. It’s not funny.’
    ‘Right then.’ Pete went back to his book.
    Alice put her book aside, turned out her light , and slid under the covers, away from Pete.
    ‘Nice chatting,’ said Pete.
    ‘Careful. Honestly.’
    ‘’kay. Sorry.’ Pete put his book down, turned a light out, and cuddled in behind his wife. ‘It’ll work out, hun.’
    ‘Yuh. Thanks.’ And an afterthought, ‘Love you.’
    ‘Love you too.’
     
     
    That night, Loraine Warren, who was staying with her sister in Torksey, walked to the gate to put the milk bottles out. She looked up at the night sky and happened to see a falling star.
    ‘Hmm.’
    She was observing the interconnectedness of all things, knowing that the light from the stars had taken an infinite time to reach her eyes. Also she knew that a ‘falling star’ was really just a meteorite burning up as it traversed the atmosphere, acknowledging, nonetheless, the portent of an event yet to come.
    Loraine , unapologetically fat and unapologetically not fit, puffed back up the front steps and into the living room where her brother-in-law, Arthur, sat bespectacled and reclined with his feet up, a Scientific American in his hands.
    ‘A world leader’s going to be shot tomorrow,’ she announced, ‘but he won’t be killed.’
    Arthur looked up, realising, after a few seconds staring into Loraine’s face that this would probably be the case.
    ‘Right,’ he said, as if that was that.
    Loraine nodded a little nod, as if that was also that. ‘Well, goodnight then.’
    ‘Goodnight.’
    His eyes followed her out. He glanced down at his magazine, and then back to where she’d been standing.
    Right.
    It was 29 March 1981.
     

    5
     
    The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena; it will make more progress than all the previous centuries of existence.
    Nikola Tesla (1856–1943)
     
    Going about his own business and little more was what made up the foundations and pillars of Gamel Warriner’s life. Anything that threatened to disrupt his easy rhythms and habits, he either didn’t notice or he closed his mind to. He was not a cruel man, but he was insensitive, through simplicity of life and habit. He cared little and felt less. He was just like that. A day in his blinkered life was preferably never an exception to any other. Every moment followed the previous one through however many hours the day sent, through weeks and seasons, moons and harvests, each year bringing him nearer his mortal limit. It was the way of things, and he conformed to this without even considering his conformity a deliberate act. It was the way of things and that was as sure a thing as there could be.
    There were two things though that daily threatened Gamel’s footing – his wife, and his youngest son. To Gamel, most people were more or less the same as each other. He preferred it that way. Trees and the like, which he knew and understood well, they were different. They had variations in the qualities of their wood and thus